


What took you so long?

by librocubucularist



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, Other, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 14:40:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3294122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/librocubucularist/pseuds/librocubucularist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-fall (ignoring canon).<br/>John has had a rough time of it after Sherlock jumped. Mrs. Hudson did all she could to keep him together, but there's only so much tea and dusting can do to heal a broken heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What took you so long?

John has a breakdown and smashed the windows. As he stumbled back from the destruction he froze. Sherlock is sitting in his chair, quietly tuning his violin. 

“Would you like me to play for you, John? It always calmed you down…or was that me?” 

As Sherlock pulled the bow smoothly across the strings like a long-absent lover John’s knees finally gave out and he sat heavily on the coffee table. 

Mrs. Hudson shakily climbed the stairs, afraid of what she might be walking into. There had been a terrible racket upstairs—crashing, glass breaking, and horrible screams—followed abruptly by utter silence. As she reached the landing she gingerly pushed aside the door to the living room and gasped. Glass lay everywhere, both windows were broken, and stacks of paper and books lay strewn in chaos across the floor. John was sitting amidst the destruction, white as a sheet, head tilted back and hands in his lap. 

“Oh! John! Are you alright?” Mrs. Hudson shuffled forwards with her hand held out limply towards the blonde man sitting on his coffee table. “Oh, dear! You’re bleeding!” Her hand fluttered in the air as she sought to touch the broken hand without touching the blood or hurting the man. She flew to the kitchen and soon returned with a rag to wrap around the dripping wound. 

“Mmm…that’s nice,” John mumbled as she applied pressure to his wrist. “Does it? I’m so glad that it just looks worse than it is then. It seems like it’s bleeding a lot, are you sure you’re alright? Still we should get you to hospital to stitch you up—” 

“The music is so soothing, you’re right. Play another one Sherlock…” Mrs. Hudson’s head snapped up in shock and she opened her mouth to inquire but her questions flew out the broken window as John’s breath hitched and he keeled over onto the coffee table. Lunging forward, the matron grasped the ex-army doctor’s shoulder and shook him as hard as she could calling out to him 

“John! John! Oh, no!” Covering her mouth with her hand she raced down the stairs leaving a trail of bloody footprints.

John cracked his heavy eyes open and jerked back to consciousness. Sherlock was staring at him with his fingers steepled in front of his mouth, violin strewn across his lap. John struggled in vain to lift himself upright.

“Any time you want to give me a hand, Sherlock.” Pulling out of a trance the former consulting detective sniffed and said, “I could help you, John, but you would have to truly want it.” 

“Don’t be such a prick! Help me!” John lifted his hand out towards his former flatmate. As his hand came into view, the pain settled in and he winced. He watched the steady flow of blood drip down his elbow from the gaping slice wrapping around from the back of his hand up the inside of his wrist. His vision swam and he dropped his hand back to his side on the table as he shifted, only now feeling the wet seeping in through his jumper and trousers. He struggled to focus and found his center as his eyes swept over to the man staring at him. 

“You’re dead.” The curly head bowed slightly in agreement. “You’re dead…” The weight of reality crashed over the surgeon and his lower lip began to tremble. “Help me up,” he choked out, thrusting his hand into the air, again. In one smooth movement Sherlock laid his violin on the floor and stood, straitening his well-tailored suit jacket over his purple button-up. 

“You have to want it, John.” 

“What are you talking about?” The tall man turned his head towards the broken window and his eyes darkened even as the sunlight washed over his features. 

“Think, John! You have a choice.” John furrowed his brow and stayed silent. “Mrs. Hudson is currently downstairs frantically phoning for an ambulance. It will arrive and take you to Bart’s in record time. They’ll stitch you up, transfuse a few pints of blood, and put you into psychiatric lockdown for a month.” 

“No. I knew what you meant, Sherlock. Help me up.” Sherlock whipped his head around so fast his curls smacked him in the eye, which he ignored, and his mouth popped open in surprise as he locked eyes with John. 

“Are you sure?” he croaked out, taking a small step forward and half-raising his hand. John pressed his lips together in a hard line to stop the tears that had gathered in his eyes from falling. 

“You’re dead. There’s nothing left for me here.” Sherlock sprang forward and clasped the shaking hand of the man lying on his coffee table. Sinking to one knee he placed his free hand on John’s uninjured shoulder to help him sit up. “Mmm…dizzy,” John said as he swayed. 

“Does it hurt?” 

“Not at all. It’s kind of peaceful, actually. Like sitting alone in the flat with you…”

Mrs. Hudson flew up the stairs as fast as her aching hip would allow, frantically shouting about the amount of blood and how long it had been since the poor man had passed out. As she reached the top of the stairs the phone dropped from her numb fingers. In her haste, she tripped narrowly missing hitting her head on the corner of the coffee table now covered in blood as well as the prone, still figure. Pushing herself upright, mindless of the myriad of cuts from the broken glass, she reached out to grasp the still-warm hand of the grey figure beside her. 

Sobs wracked her body as she clutched the hand of the second man she considered her son to die in as many years. Tilting her head back in grief she saw something wavering in the light through her tears. Later, everyone would tell her that it was just the grief, that there wasn’t anything really there. But she never doubted what it was she saw. She believed everyday until one summer morning as she sat in her armchair, looking out the window of her room in the care facility for the elderly and disabled. 

“Are you ready?” a deep baritone clipped at her as a warm, calloused hand clasped her withered one. 

“My boys…” she sighed. The orderly that came to bring her breakfast told them that she had a smile on her face and that she was clutching an old, faded newspaper photograph in her left hand, it had been a peaceful passing. She would always show that picture to everyone she met, telling them that the scowling man in the deer-stalker and the shorter, blonde man following behind him were “her boys.” No one knew what she meant, they would all just smile and nod “Of course, dear. Now why don’t we go get some fresh air?” The only, rare, visitors she ever had were two pudgy, older men who said that they used to work for New Scotland Yard. They were the ones to claim her body for burial.

She was laid to rest beside two plots with such vastly different headstones that they could not have been related: one a bleak obsidian with only the owner’s name emblazoned in gold lettering, no additional information; the other a low, rough-hewn slab with brass holders on either end that were filled with flowers and military flags and emblems and an epithet reading “Captain, son, and fierce friend.”


End file.
